To Bare Witness
by Crowlows19
Summary: Wolf has been sent to watch over a high security witness after his life has been threatened by SCORPIA. What he didn't bank on was a teenager with a knack for trouble. Can he keep the kid safe or will dark secrets threaten everyone's security?
1. Chapter 1

Hey guys, so this chapter is a little short and I don't know when I'll be able to update again so expect new chapters to be slow.

Also, fair warning that while I don't plan on putting in anything graphic this fic is a little darker and the concepts are a bit mature. I didn't think there was enough to up the rating to 'M' though.

And this fic will completely ignore the last book. Mostly because I haven't read it yet.

**Disclaimer: I do not own Alex Rider.**

* * *

><p>Wolf wasn't sure how to feel about this particular assignment. He'd been sent to protect high security witnesses and politicians before but it had never been in this manner. Always had he taken them to some sort of safe house or had simply safely transported them from point A to point B. Never before had he been sent to their personal residence for what could possibly be weeks if not months.<p>

The briefing had stated quite plainly that he was not to reveal anything about himself-as per usual-nor was he allowed to ask the witness any questions-also usual. However there was a small tag underneath these warnings that was not usual. He was also not allowed to let the witness engage in any after school activities without express knowledge of said witness's location and possibly his own presence during said activity. This caused him to raise his eyebrows and look at Mrs. Jones with a rather perplexed expression.

"How old is the witness?" he asked. He hoped she would answer. It wasn't like he wouldn't be able to figure it out once he met the witness but MI6 had curious policies when it came to need-to-know bases.

"The witness is fourteen," she replied blankly.

"A teenager?" Wolf repeated surprised. It wasn't impossible for a teenager or even a full-blown child to have sensitive government secrets. He'd seen it before in Iraq and Afghanistan when orphans would sometimes turn up at the base with far more information than they should have for someone so young. But it was relatively rare for a teen in London to have sensitive government secrets.

Unless it was Cub. He hoped it wasn't. While their tentative truce had gotten them through the debacle at Point Blanc he was not particularly interested in seeing that kid again. The blond boy had, after all, kicked him out of a plane and gotten him shot, and while Wolf was man enough to admit inside in his own head that he deserved it, he wasn't willing to admit it out loud. Even if he was the only one in the room.

"Unfortunately," the woman replied and Wolf could tell this genuinely bothered her. Not that she showed any outward sign of conflicting emotions. Her choice of words would be the only indication he got that she wasn't yet dead inside. "You must tread carefully with this job Wolf. I know you have had dealings with SCORPIA in the past but they are going to be particularly vicious on this account."

"Would it be beyond my clearance to know why?" he asked, wanting to know but not interested in causing a stink about protocol either.

"It is," she replied. "We cannot currently tell you anymore than what is in that folder." She nodded to the file. "You may take that with you. I have a feeling you will need to reference it several times. All of the witness's information is in that file. Any questions?"

"No, ma'am."

"Dismissed."

* * *

><p>Wolf poured over the file when he got back to his small flat in Birmingham. He hated the drive to the Royal and General. The near three hour trek always seemed to be despicable whenever he had to make it. Once he was back on his couch, beer in hand and feet on the coffee table, he flipped to the section that detailed the witness. General appearance descriptions were left out, of course, but everything he ever he needed to know about this mysterious fourteen year old was there.<p>

He played football, his grades were horrible, he was allergic to tetracycline and pineapple, and he had a clean record. He didn't appear to be some sort of thug or anything but Wolf wouldn't know something like that for certain until he actually met the boy. Continuing on he found an interesting section that caused him to raise his eyebrows. The psyche evaluation MI6 had on him wasn't too pleasing. In fact, it was downright weird.

The kid was suffering from mental health issues that would manifest themselves in a strange form of obsessive compulsive disorder. Apparently if the colored paper clips weren't in the right order the boy could potentially have a meltdown. There were other things in there as well. The boy wouldn't touch eggs with a ten foot pole and he had an unnatural distaste for staplers. Wolf couldn't help but leak a strange expression onto his face as he read through that section. _What the hell?_

The soldier kept reading and found himself face to face with a police statement. Apparently the kid _had_ been arrested once before but the charges had been dropped. There were no significant details in the statement other than he had been arrested for destruction of property.

Despite not truly caring about the details in the file beyond how they could help him do his job, Wolf was suddenly torn as to whether or not meeting this kid was a good idea. He seemed more than a little messed up. Not to mention the fact that SCORPIA was no joke and if they were determined to end this boy Wolf wasn't entirely sure if he could do it all by himself. He was thinking he might need a team. He should have asked Jones. Although, the kid did live in London. If anything came up, meeting with her to request back up wouldn't be too big of an issue.

Wolf was so caught up in his file that he didn't hear the door open as his roommate came in. The other man-an SAS soldier as well-walked into the living room to find him with that strange expression still plastered onto his face.

"Interesting reading?" he asked loudly, causing Wolf to jump violently and his beer to slosh out of the bottle and onto his hand. Closing the file and leaving both it and the beer on the table, the man wiped his hand.

"You could say that," he said as the taller, lankier soldier sat in his favorite chair.

"Got a new job?" he asked, scratching at the back of his head and his blond eyebrows crinkling.

"Yeah," Wolf told him. "Witness protection detail."

"Joy," his friend replied sarcastically. He never had enjoyed those jobs. "What was with the funny look?"

"The psyche eval," Wolf told him honestly. "It was a little weird."

"Aren't they always?" he asked.

"This one more so," Wolf said offhandedly his brain already back in the file. "Is there a name for being afraid of eggs?"

"Ovophobia," the other man said immediately and Wolf shot him a weird look.

"What?" the blond asked raising his hands in surrender, probably hoping to ward off a ruthless round of teasing and taunting.

"How the _hell_ do you know that?" he asked.

"Discovery Channel," the other man replied. "They did a special on phobias."

"Well could you at least _pretend_ that you can't pull that type of stuff off the top of your head?" the soldier beseeched. "This is why you never get laid."

"And what's you excuse?" the other soldier shot back.

Wolf just rolled his eyes and picked up both the file and beer. He flipped it back open and ignored the blond as he turned on the TV. When he heard the sounds of the Discovery Channel fill the room he wondered what it would be like if he didn't have a roommate who was as dorky as his was. He would know a lot less useless information, that's for sure.

* * *

><p>Early the next morning Wolf packed his bag and gathered a few weapons and his work mobile. He left his personal mobile in his room, like he always did when he left for work. His roommate was still sound asleep and Wolf could hear the other man snoring through the thin walls of the third-floor flat. He loaded his car and pointed it back towards London or more specifically, Chelsea.<p>

He made good time and was at the kid's house by eight. Grabbing his duffel and making sure the file was still inside he made his way to the front door and rang the bell. It didn't take long for someone to answer but he was nonetheless surprised by the door suddenly swinging open. Although it was really surprise over who had opened the door than anything else.

"Snake?" he asked more than a little thrown to see the man. Wolf hadn't seen him since training had finished nearly a year ago. Had it really only been a year?

"Wolf?" the Scottish man retorted equally surprised. "So you're the second soldier?"

"What do you mean?"

"I was originally the only one who was supposed to be working this detail," he replied and stepped back to let the other man in. Wolf quickly followed him inside and Snake shut the door. The soldier found himself in a small mudroom and through the second door he could see a small hallway that ended with the kitchen. There was a door halfway down on the right that led the rest of the small home.

"What happened?" Wolf asked recognizing the fact that something had clearly changed in the situation.

"Kid got worse," Snake replied.

"How long have you been here?"

"About three weeks," the other soldier said and led him through the doorway and into a small living room where he gestured for Wolf to sit. The darker soldier took the hint and sat down on an armchair. Snake took a seat on the couch nearby. "They sent me here because of my medical background. There was a poisoning attempt three days ago. The job just got too big for one person."

"So they sent me to help you out," Wolf finished not at all surprised that they hadn't let him know ahead of time that he was going in to help someone else. Not that he expected Jones to really care about forewarnings.

"Looks like it," Snake replied. "How have you been? I haven't seen you since training ended."

"Nenh," Wolf mumbled. "You know how it is. I'm fine. What about you?"

"I'm fine too," the medic replied but even with Wolf's limited caring capacity the other man clearly didn't look fine.

"I read the psyche eval MI6 did on the kid," he told the other man who looked up in interest.

"I actually did that," he said. "They didn't have one for you and I wanted to make sure whoever was coming in was at least halfway aware of the boy's mental problems."

"What do you mean 'halfway aware'?" Wolf asked cautiously.

"They only had two lines for phobias," the other man said with a forced half smile. _Great_.

"How many does he have?"

"Six," Snake told him firmly. "But they're weird ones. I'd never heard of most of them until I came here."

"What are they?"

"Cataptrophobia, Octophobia, Hypnophobia, Peladophobia, Ovophobia, and then the thing with the stapler. They don't have a name for that," the medic said momentarily forgetting that Wolf had absolutely zero psychological training in his background. He had no idea what any of those words had meant except for ovophobia and that certainly wasn't by choice.

"I have no idea what you just said to me," Wolf told the other with an amused smirk. "English?"

"Oh sorry," Snake said looking momentarily embarrassed. "Um, in order, he has a fear of mirrors, the figure eight, sleep, bald people, eggs, and staplers."

"I didn't think any of those were even possible," Wolf replied getting the same strange look on his face as he had the day before.

"Neither did I but here we are," Snake said holding his hands out momentarily to indicate the house and then dropped them back to his knees with a slap. Wolf suddenly caught sight of the bags under the man's eyes and wondered if taking care of this kid had driven the other man into the ground. "You should know that there aren't any mirrors in the house, we can't buy any eggs, and you'll need to grow your hair out if you're going to be here for awhile."

Wolf nodded. Snake's red hair was a lot longer than the typical military cut and while Wolf's was cut short he certainly wasn't bald.

"Is there a reason he has these phobias?" Wolf asked perplexed. This was quickly shaping up to be the strangest job he'd ever had. Unfortunately, Snake just shrugged.

"I'm sure there is," he said. "It's clear something happened to him. When I got here he was pretty banged up. Cuts, bruises. Somebody worked him over pretty good but I was never told what happened."

"And we're not allowed to ask," Wolf finished.

"Exactly," the other man agreed. "Whatever happened we know it has something to do with SCORPIA."

"Then it was bad," Wolf said recalling the book he'd once seen that had been written by a member of the broad. The one on torture. Poor kid. "Have there been any other attacks besides the poisoning attempt?"

"No," Snake replied. "The house has a twenty-four hour guard and so does his school."

"He goes to school?" Wolf asked eyebrows raised. He was honestly surprised. What if the kid walked by a mirror? Were any of his teachers bald?

"Sort of," Snake said. "They have a special tutor that works with him, but he still has lunch with his friends and he still plays football. Although his coach always has to wear a hat during practice. The school's been pretty good about working with him actually."

"Yeah? Where does he go?"

"Brookland High School," Snake told him. "It's not too far from here. One of us will have to be in the building when he's there though."

"I'll go with him tomorrow," Wolf said immediately. "You look exhausted." Snake snorted at that.

"I am exhausted," he said. "Kid's deathly afraid to sleep and when he does he gets wicked night terrors. Screaming, flailing, the whole nine. It's been rough."

"Sounds like it," Wolf replied, feeling sorry for the other soldier but not showing it. It wouldn't be appreciated. Snake looked ready to say something else but the creaking of the steps stopped him cold. Wolf heard footsteps and soon enough the kid came into view. His eyes were bloodshot and he had dark circles under them. His skin was pale as if he was sick. He looked a little frail and it wasn't helped by the many bruises Wolf could see on the kid's bare arms, legs, and neck. They were healing but they were a nasty green-yellow color and Wolf just knew they were painful.

He also saw several healing gashes on the kid's right bicep. There were three of them and they were perfectly parallel. Wolf recognized them instantly for what they were. They were Dr. Three's mark. This kid had probably been tortured by SCORPIA's worst. It made the soldier sick.

"Hey, buddy," Snake said calmly as he stood up. Wolf followed his example and did his best not to look intimidating. The boy looked ready to flee at the drop of a hat. "Wolf's going to be staying with us for awhile."

"Hi," the kid said softly, sounding much younger than he was.

"Hey kiddo," Wolf replied giving the boy a small, awkward wave. "How you doing?"

The kid didn't answer, just raised one shoulder in a half shrug.

"Oh! Um, Wolf you probably don't know his name yet," Snake said suddenly remembering that he hadn't said it yet and Wolf shook his head to confirm. "Right, um, this is Tom Harris."


	2. Chapter 2

Tom Harris was somewhat broken. That much was clear to Wolf. In the few days that Wolf had known the kid, it was utterly and painfully clear that Tom had been through something absolutely terrible. Wolf wasn't sure what that horrible thing was but he was fairly certain that it was something most people died from. Snake didn't seem to understand it all either. In fact, the other soldier seemed only capable of treating the symptoms of Tom's mental condition but not curing the problem. Wolf blamed MI6.

It was a bit irrational of course. They hadn't done this to the kid, but he was clearly the son or the brother or some other person to someone in the organization. This level of violence was reserved to revenge. He'd seen it before. He could spot it anywhere.

The boy screamed at night. He screamed so long that his voice was constantly hoarse during the day. There was nothing they could do for the night terrors. Snake tried to give the kid sleeping pills but he claimed they made the paperclips go funny. Wolf was genuinely concerned about this fascination with coloured paperclips. To him they represented a complete and total break with sanity.

Snake brought the kid a new box every day and every day that he couldn't face school he would sit on the couch and string them together in a specific order. Always red, blue, green, yellow. And when he was finished with the line he would hang them above his bed like streamers. The ceiling was nearly concealed with strings of paperclips. It was all disconcerting.

Nearly a week after his arrival, Tom was still getting used to him. When Snake was sleeping off his night shift Wolf was getting the kid some cereal and his pain medicine. Every day they would have the same conversation.

"Can you make it to school?"

"I don't know."

"Why don't you try? It'll do you some good to get out the house, see your friends, play some football."

"What about my paperclips?"

"Nobody's going to steal your paperclips while you're gone. I promise."

"I can't go today."

Wolf would never respond to the boy's last statement. Now that the boy had all but withdrawn from the world SCORPIA seemed content to leave him be. Or they had more important things to deal with. Soldier and teenager would sit on the couch watching telly for the rest of the day. Wolf always made sure it the tame daytime TV programs that Tom would stare at with complete concentration as if it was the last thing he understood in this life. Wolf found it all horribly depressing.

Around one or two in the afternoon, Snake would wake up and go out to pick them up some lunch and get another box of Tom's paperclips. And every afternoon the boy put together another string. He would do it in complete silence. Except for today. Today, apparently, was a good day.

"Do you know him?"

It took Wolf a moment to figure out that it was Tom who was talking to him. Snake wasn't in the room at the moment and the soldier was so used to complete silence that he wasn't prepared for Tom to open his mouth.

"Know who?" he asked dumbly.

"My friend," the kid replied not taking his eyes off of his paperclips. "They told me that the people who would take care of me would be people he trusted."

"What's your friend's name?" Wolf asked now trying to place Tom's face in the multitude of pictures he'd seen in bunks and barracks since training. Who did he know that Tom was friends with? He couldn't figure it out. He needed a name or a codename.

Tom shrugged.

"You know him," the boy insisted. "They said so." Wolf knew right away that 'they' was MI6 or possibly the SAS but who was the friend?

"I know a lot of people in the service," Wolf replied trying not to let any of his frustration shine through. "What's his name?"

The confused teen looked up from his string of paperclips. He had a look of pure confusion on his face.

"I don't know," he said. "I lost it."

"Lost it?" Wolf asked feeling just as confused as Tom looked. Was the kid suffering amnesia?

"Yeah," Tom said. He got a faraway look to him and suddenly began rambling as if he couldn't get it all out fast enough. "I lost a lot of things. In the room. In the desert. With that guy. He killed her. Blew her up and my friend-he cried and screamed. I could hear it through the wall. But he got away. He didn't know they had me. I don't think they ever told him."

"Where is your friend now?" Wolf asked when the boy slipped into silence again. Tom shrugged again.

"They said he was gone. That I wouldn't ever see him again. I think it's because I can't remember his name," the boy replied scratching at his nose absently. He was concentrating on something-a lucid thought rattling around his brain. He hadn't had moments like this often, not since the poisoning attempt that had brought Wolf here in the first place.

"Do you remember what he looks like?" Wolf asked vaguely wondering if he should be asking questions. The last thing he wanted to do was make it all worse by dragging up memories of torture that Tom had been burying for the last few months. The kid had been through hell and now had issues that required delicate handling. Wolf was a bull in a china cabinet when it came to sensitivity and empathy.

Tom shook his head.

"He's a blur," Tom said.

"Do you have amnesia?" Wolf asked. "Is that why you can't remember anything?" He was too curious at this point. Tom nodded.

"A form of it," he said. "A doctor said that I'd start getting memories back when I could deal with them. But probably not before then. But I can't remember the good stuff either. I think it's from the experiments."

"Experiments?" Wolf asked, beginning to feel a little horrified. There was revenge violence and then there was purely evil, sadistic violence.

"The pain experiments," Tom said. "He said I was the subject with the best results. He said I made scientific history."

"And what did you say?" Wolf asked.

"I said nothing," Tom replied. "But he came to close. So I bit off his finger. He didn't like that much."

"No, I imagine not," Wolf replied feeling perversely amused at the fight in Tom. He clearly hadn't lost everything without a fight. Wolf felt an unprecedented amount of respect begin to well up for the boy. He smiled when the kid looked at him with round blue eyes that were momentarily clear. So clear, in fact, Wolf felt like the kid was looking right through him, sizing him up, and figuring out whether or not to trust him. Wolf hoped he passed the test. He genuinely wanted to help the kid. Mostly because despite all the problems, the soldier actually liked him.

And as suddenly as the moment of clarity came, it was gone. Tom's eyes dulled again as he sunk back into himself and looked back down to his previously forgotten paperclips. He began to string them again-red, blue, green, yellow. Wolf wondered what it meant. If it meant anything at all.

00000

Wolf and Snake were watching telly late that night waiting for the usual round of screams. Wolf always went to bed after the initial night terror. He had to wear ear plugs to make it through the night. He felt bad-like he was ignoring the kid-but someone had to always be with him. So Snake would stay up at night and sleep during the day. Wolf was with the boy during the day and slept at night. One of them was always alert and ready for anything.

Tonight however was different. Tonight there were no screams.

Snake was just starting to suggest checking that the kid was still in the house when they heard the stairs creak. Tom appeared at the bottom looking scared.

"Tom?" Snake asked. "Are you alright?"

The kid shook his head.

"Did you have a nightmare?" Wolf asked. The boy shook his head.

"What's wrong?" Snake asked. The kid looked back over his shoulder as if expecting something to leap out at him.

"There's a face at my window," the kid said. The statement was barely out his mouth before Wolf was bounding up the stairs, gun drawn, and prepared to meet SCORPIA agents in the boy's room. But when he got there, he saw nothing. The blue and yellow lava lamp was going casting long shadows. The paperclips were still fastened to the ceiling. The blinds were open.

The soldier crossed to the window and looked out. There was nothing, not even a suspicious shadow. The kid hadn't been sleeping. Tom never just silently woke from a nightmare. He'd seen something. But what? Had it been in his imagination or had there really been a face at his window? With this kid both possibilities were equally as likely.

"Anything?" Snake asked from the doorway. Wolf saw Tom hiding behind the other soldier. He looked small, broken, and much younger than he actually was.

"No," he said and holstered his gun. "There's nothing out there." He turned and shut the blinds. _Problem solved._

"What did the face look like Tom?" Snake asked gently after turning around to face the clearly terrified boy. The kid opened his mouth but nothing came out. He seemed shocked into silence. "Tom?" There was a croaking sound, like the kid couldn't find any words to describe what he'd seen.

Wolf crossed over to the kid and kneeled down in front of him so that Tom was looking down at him. Placing two hands on the kid's forearms the soldier forced him to fully face him. Tom did so without a fight. It was the first time Wolf had ever touched the teen and he'd honestly been expecting a meltdown of some sort. Was Tom already used to him? Did he trust him?

"Tom," he said quietly. "Are you _sure_ you saw a face and didn't just dream it?"

"There was a face," Tom said firmly. "I saw him. I know I did."

"What did he look like?" Wolf asked quietly. "Do you remember?"

"He was young," Tom said.

"Young?" Snake asked. The teen nodded. "How young?"

"Like me," the boy whispered. For some reason he looked as if he was going to cry. His eyes dropped to the floor.

"What's wrong Tom?" Wolf asked concerned. In the entire time he'd been there he'd never actually seen the kid tear up. Not even in his blackest moments. "Did you know him? Did you recognize who's face it was?"

Tom shrugged.

"I don't know. I lost it."

Figuring that was all they were going to get Wolf stood back up and put a steady hand on Tom's shoulder. The kid leaned into it easily. Wolf wondered if he was starved for contact. He wouldn't be surprised if that was the case. Everyone thought Tom was fragile, moments from falling apart completely. Snake had made that clear enough over the last week. But Wolf suspected something different. He had a feeling that Tom was trying to dig his way out of some hole in his head.

Was trying to desperately because he knew he needed to. He'd been trying to tell Wolf something earlier that day. The soldier just didn't know what it was. Perhaps if he'd been able to ask the right questions he might have been able to at least pull Tom part way back to reality. Was that why they were really there?

To shake loose the walls Tom had built around what he knew about SCORPIA and lay bare their secrets for the world to see? As Wolf understood it the organization was laying in pieces anyway but an organization like that was built for survival. They could return and if they did it would be with a vengeance. Did Tom have the key to killing SOCRPIA for good? Was that why MI6 was so bent on protecting him and SCORPIA so bent on killing him? What had he seen when he'd been in their clutches?

From what Tom had said earlier, Wolf suspected the kid to be a lot tougher than anyone was giving him credit for. The soldier trusted his instinct on that. He'd always been a decent judge of character-even if he didn't act on that judgment. His instincts were screaming at him that Tom knew something. Something he shouldn't know.

Wolf spent the rest of that night lying awake in bed trying to figure out how he was going to get Tom to talk, to remember. He was by no stretch of the imagination, an expert on the issues Tom had. And he had no idea what it was that compelled Tom to talk when he did and remain silent when he did. He needed time with the kid. But he also needed to know more about him. He needed information he couldn't get sitting on the couch with the whacked out teen stringing together paperclips.

When morning came, Wolf changed up his usual breakfast conversation with the teen.

"You're going to school today," he said forcefully. Tom looked at him, surprised. Wolf had never ordered him to do anything before. "I don't want to hear any complaints."

Tom just nodded.

"Okay," he said. "But you get to explain to Ms. Bedfordshire why I haven't been around for days. She's a real stickler for attendance you know." That was probably the most coherent thing Tom had ever said to Wolf. The soldier stared at the kid for a moment, shocked at the obvious humor in his voice. Had Tom really just made a joke?

"Well," he responded, covering himself. "You really should be in school. You wouldn't want your grades to slip."

"Trust me," Tom replied. "They didn't have far to fall to begin with."

"Yeah?" Wolf asked. He set down the bowl of cereal and wondered just how long this moment of complete and utter normalcy was going to last. He actually rather liked it. "You struggle with school?"

"Sometimes," Tom said. "It was hard to focus on that stuff. Mum and Dad went through a really bad divorce not long ago. School sort of felt unimportant what with World War III and all." Wolf snorted in amusement and Tom actually smiled around his Cheerios. It was a small smile but it was the first Wolf had seen.

Maybe there was a part of the kid that was still salvageable hidden in there. Maybe he just needed for people to stop asking if he was okay all the time. Wolf knew from experience that sometimes the sympathy was the worst part.

But Wolf wasn't good with sympathy anyway. If talking about school and bad grades was all it took for Tom to open up a little, Wolf was fine with that. He could handle that.

Probably.


	3. Chapter 3

Tom did surprisingly well with being forced to go to school.

When he and Wolf got to Brookland the boy led him to the main office where the soldier was set upon by the woman behind the desk. It didn't take a genius to find out that _this_ was Ms. Bedfordshire.

"I know he's been through a lot," the woman ranted. "But he just simply _must_ be in school. If he doesn't feel up to coming then he needs to do his lessons at home. If he falls too far behind he could fail the year and have to repeat!"

"I understand that," Wolf responded, trying to keep his calm and resisting the urge to whack the grinning teen upside his head. "Sometimes it just isn't physically possible to do the lessons, no matter where they're taking place. We're working on it though."

The woman's shoulders slumped and she let them go after that. Tom led him to the special room the school had set up for him to use. It was just an old, cramped conference room that was usually used for make-up tests. Now it had a whiteboard, a coffee machine, a projector, and a few chairs and a table. Tom sat down and started pulling out his notebook and pen. The teen flipped to a blank page and began doodling. It took Wolf five minutes to put together what he was drawing and he was concerned to note that it was a bunch of paperclips strung together.

"Who's supposed to teach you your lessons?" he finally asked, reclining in his own office chair, elbow resting the arm rest.

"Ms. Yenn," he said. "She sometimes doesn't show up though."

"Why?"

"She's scared of being alone with me."

Wolf's eyebrows went up. He knew that Tom's condition was a little disconcerting and perhaps cause for worry, especially if you'd known him before he'd been taken, but he saw no reason for someone to be afraid of the boy. He was young and small for his age and Wolf was fairly certain a strong enough wind could knock him down.

"Why?" he asked again feeling as if this was the only thing he ever asked anymore.

"There was another tutor before her but I didn't like him."

"What did you do?" Wolf asked, fairly certain he knew where this was going but still not certain he wanted to hear it.

"I bit him," Tom said matter of factly. Wolf resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the proclamation. "Someone told Ms. Yenn that and now she gets nervous when she's around me. Even after I promised everyone I wouldn't bite anyone else. No one believes me though." Wolf put a hand on the kid's shoulder. He couldn't help it; the boy looked so damn sad.

"What were you working on last?" he asked, fishing for a change of subject.

"Calculus," Tom said. "Something about derivatives."

"Ah," Wolf replied. So the kid was smart; his life had pulled his grades down. "How about we do something with English?"

"I finished this month's English lessons," Tom said. "Do you speak Spanish?"

"SÍ," Wolf replied with an amused smirk. Tom didn't smile.

"Can you help me with that?" he asked instead. The kid still hadn't looked up from his paper at all so Wolf took the pen right out of his hand in order to get the boy to look at him. Tom did after a moment's hesitation, as if he wasn't sure if it was a good idea to look at Wolf when talking to him.

"Are you going to pay attention?" Wolf asked trying his hardest not to sound overly rude or mean. He didn't want the kid to crawl into his hole again. Tom nodded and Wolf was pleased to note that there was some effort put into making that simple nod enthusiastic, as if the kid actually cared about conjugations. Wolf was satisfied with that and Tom pulled out his Spanish textbook.

They got to work.

00000

By lunch time they finished the lessons for the next week. Tom didn't do school work like regular students; he did what he could when he could. However, he was still expected to finish the expected coursework by the end of the month. They had stripped the work to the bare bones so that his mind wouldn't be overloaded during recovery. The kid still had worksheets, quizzes, and even tests but he didn't have homework, essays, or projects.

Ms. Yenn didn't show up that first day and when she didn't show up the second, Wolf asked Ms. Bedfordshire where she was. He was told the tutor had put in her notice two weeks ago and they were having trouble locating another tutor. Wolf knew that normally it wouldn't be that difficult to find someone even with Tom's level of damage but most were probably being stonewalled by MI6. He asked the lady what he should about Tom's lessons.

"Keep working on the ones you can help him with," she said. "The teachers have all been notified about the problem and they're going to meet about it tomorrow afternoon. Most likely, he'll be asked to turn in everything he can't do without the tutor at the end of year. I'll have to let you know though."

"Thank you," he said. He wasn't going to push the issue with the school even though he thought there were better ways to go about this. He didn't really care about Tom's grades at the moment. He was more concerned about the kid being shot in the head by a sniper.

On the third day-Friday-Wolf decided to take the opportunity to just talk to the kid. Tom was getting more and more chatty by the day which wasn't saying much but Snake was suitably impressed. As the soldier watched the kid draw a football soaring into the net he thought back to the conversation he'd had with his teammate last night.

"Tom's gotten attached to you," Snake had said suddenly and without any sort of build up. Wolf was torn from the rugby game. Tom had been asleep for at least an hour and they were just waiting for a nightmare to start.

"How can you tell?" Wolf asked, not denying it but certainly not stating that he already knew that fact.

"C'mon Wolf," Snake said indulgently. "The kid's been following you around like a puppy for days now. Ever since you talked to him about his friend. The one he can't remember."

"He never told you that stuff?"

"Of course not," Snake said his eyebrows raised in an expression that quite plainly said he thought Wolf was being a little thick. "He's never talked to anyone about anything that's happened to him. The only reason we know about his phobias is because he'd start screaming and clawing and biting. I can't tell you how many times the kid's had to be sedated before he could hurt someone or himself."

"Then why did he tell me that stuff?" Wolf had asked, recalling that Tom had been decidedly calm when he'd opened up.

"Because he's attached to you," Snake said. "And you should be really careful about it."

"What do you mean?" Wolf asked even though he had a good idea of what the other man was talking about.

"I mean that Tom is operating almost on pure instinct," he replied. "If he decides to trust you it means he's starting to come back to himself. He's starting to see that there are people out there that aren't going to hurt him like SCORPIA did. But he's not to the point where he'll be able to recognize the difference between physical and emotional hurt. He thinks hurt is hurt and right now he's easily hurt."

Wolf spent ten minutes in silence trying to digest what Snake had just told him. He understood that Tom getting attached to him was likely. He'd seen such things before with soldiers and the people they rescued. But this was a different kind of mission and he wasn't entirely sure if he could handle the complete and total trust of a child that damaged. After all, Wolf wasn't empathic at all. There was a reason he was forbidden from negotiating with any one, friend or foe. And what would happen when the inevitable reassignment took place?

"And what will happen if I do hurt him?" Wolf asked.

"He'll probably never recover," Snake said. "Since you've been here we've seen more improvement than in all the weeks the MI6 doctors were working on him."

"But _why_ did he get so attached?"

"Who knows?" Snake replied. "You may remind him of someone, his MI6 friend might have talked about you in passing, or the kid may simply just _like_ you. You'd have to ask him that one. But for whatever reason he trusts you which makes you the most important player in all of this."

"What do you mean?"

"C'mon Wolf," Snake chided again. "There's a reason MI6 is so invested in keeping this one alive. He knows something. Something important. And it's critical that he remembers it because knowing SCORPIA it may just save the world."

Snake had left after that to tend to a screaming Tom. Wolf was too lost in thought to move from his position and he was so used to the night terrors that they just rolled off him like water. As long as someone was with the kid when he woke up he was usually able to settle down again.

Looking at Tom now, as he doodled his little picture in the Brookland School conference room, Wolf couldn't believe for a second that the kid knew something that critical. He was a boy and he had been a prisoner because he'd been unfortunate enough to know someone who probably had known something critical. Was that what all this was about? The friend? Did everyone think he knew what his friend knew?

"Tom?" he said and the teen immediately looked up with an inquisitive expression. "I thought you played football." It wasn't a question and it certainly wasn't what he had wanted to say but he couldn't do it. The kid looked so sad. Snake had been right to liken him to a puppy.

"I used to," was the reply. Wolf raised his eyebrows in a silent urging to go on. Tom obliged. "After I came back, well, like this, they wouldn't let me on the fields during actual games. They said I was too dangerous because sometimes I lose track of where I am. Coach said I could still come to practice though, to stay in shape until I was better."

"But?"

"But then _they_ poisoned my soup. Who does that? Poisons a sick person's soup?" Wolf couldn't help but smile in amusement at the question and the innocently confused expression on the boy's face. And then the rest of the sentence caught up with him.

"Who's they, Tom?" he asked.

"You know," Tom replied. "_Them_. The people with the needles and the booms and-"

"And what?" Wolf asked when the kid suddenly stopped his expression frozen. He was clearly caught up in a thought and the soldier wanted to know what that thought was.

"Is Snake watching my paperclips?" the kid asked suddenly. Wolf resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

"Yes Tom," the man replied, indulging the kid for a moment. "What else can you tell me about _them_?"

"Oh!" Tom said, sounding surprised that they back to that subject. Surprised but not reluctant. "The nice peppermint lady said they were hurt, that they might try once or twice to kill me but that I shouldn't worry about them anymore. She said people-good people-were going to take care of me from now on."

"Where are your parents Tom?"

"I don't know," the boy replied. "I lost that."

"Can I ask you something?" Wolf continued hoping that this flow would keep going until he could make sense of what he was hearing. "About all of your fears?"

"Snake calls 'em phobias," Tom supplied helpfully.

"Yes, about your phobias."

Tom nodded his consent but turned back at his drawing. Wolf didn't demand eye contact.

"Why are you so afraid of the things you're afraid of? Do you remember why they make you scared?"

"A little bit," Tom said and then continued unprompted. "I don't like the mirrors because they remind me of the room. There were mirrors on the walls and ceiling so that no matter where I looked I would always see what he was doing. I get flashbacks a lot, when I look in mirrors."

Wolf nodded. That made sense, he guessed.

"What about the figure eight?"

"There was this symbol," Tom said. "Scratched into the wall of my cell. I think someone else scratched it there with their fingernails. You could still see the blood."

"The symbol was in the shape of a figure eight?"

"Yeah," Tom said, "but it was sideways." Wolf knew that was the mathematical symbol for infinity. Why would someone scratch that into a wall of a cell that housed torture victims? It would have taken effort, it would have hurt. That meant it was important.

"And the other phobias?"

"The guard that took me to the hurt room," Tom continued. "He was bald as a cue ball." Wolf smiled at the expression. It never ceased to amaze him that Tom could still have a sense of humor, however buried beneath all of the sadness and pain it was.

"Bald people gave me flashbacks," the boy said without prompting. "At first, when I was still in hospital and real sick and confused. I've gotten mostly past that one."

"That's good to hear," Wolf replied and wondered how far behind Snake was in the boy's recovery. They couldn't track anything if the boy didn't communicate and it didn't seem as if he was communicating anything significant with anyone but Wolf. Lucky him.

"I don't like the staplers because he used them on me," Tom said. "On my back." Wolf had seen what remained of the healing puncture wounds. One line from each shoulder to his pelvis. He winced, knowing now what had caused those wounds. "And sleep brings all that bad stuff back."

The phobia of sleep had been obvious to everyone. The MI6 doctors had already been able to determine that the kid had developed that _after_ his rescue, not before.

"And what about the egg phobia Tom?" Wolf asked. This had probably been the most confusing phobia of all and Wolf was highly reluctant to hear what caused it. What could SCORPIA have _possibly_ done in order to cause a phobia of eggs?

"Oh! The first morning I was with Snake he made the worst scrambled eggs known to man," Tom said. "I told him they scared me so he wouldn't ever try again. Worked too. Although I sometimes miss egg sandwiches."

Wolf couldn't help it.

He laughed. It was a hearty and genuine laugh. It was the type of laugh that he hadn't been capable of making on this assignment. Until now at least. But he wasn't just laughing because Tom's little deception was actually incredibly funny considering he had all the MI6 doctors scratching their heads over it. He was laughing because he was genuinely relieved.

There was something left of Tom to be salvaged.

He was sure of it and the broad smile Tom gave him in answer to the laughter Wolf gave over his prank was just another piece of evidence to the soldier. Evidence of recovery.


	4. Chapter 4

Wolf made Tom an egg sandwich that next Monday for breakfast. The boy smiled gleefully and dug in with the gusto quite common to kids his age. He wondered how much longer he would have to wait for the kid to be well enough to start remembering things. Tom hadn't said much over the weekend but he also hadn't played with his paperclips. Snake had bought his customary box of colored paper clips and while Tom had started to string them together-red, blue, green, yellow-he had not finished.

In fact, he had actually spent most of Saturday on Snake's laptop looking through his Facebook. Wolf thought it was an odd thing to do considering Tom was, well, Tom.

"That girl is nuts*," Tom had spoken up suddenly, his head cocked to one side as if he was trying to figure out whatever it was he was reading. Both soldiers had taken an immediate interest. If _Tom_ thought someone was doing something odd, it had to be something very odd indeed. Wolf had even leaned over to read the screen.

"Really?" he said after reading the full series of messages on Tom's newsfeed. "She got a tattoo of his face after just a week together?"

"Seriously?" Snake asked, just as amused.

"Yes," Wolf said and handed the laptop over for him to read. "How do you know that girl?"

"Just from Facebook really," Tom said. "I think I've spoken to her once in real life." Wolf smiled at that. While Wolf wasn't sure if Tom should be spending that much time on Facebook, he wasn't going to begrudge Tom something normal.

And of course, on Sunday Wolf had told Snake about Tom's prank. Snake had been anything but amused. In fact, he had actually been angry.

"That little shit," he'd seethed, just quiet enough so that Tom wouldn't overhear them in the next room. "Do you have any idea how much time I've spent trying to figure out ways to help him and it wasn't even real? Are any of his other phobias fake?"

"No," Wolf said, amused despite himself. "But he said he wasn't afraid of bald people anymore."

"Hmph," Snake replied. "Just try to keep me up to date with what's happening with him. You seem to be the only one he ever wants to talk to."

"I will," he promised.

Now as he watched Tom devour an egg sandwich with obvious glee he was pretty certain that Tom's attachment to him could easily become more detrimental than helpful. Wolf would eventually be transferred and Tom would most likely be given another set of handlers. There was no telling how the boy would react to that and in all honesty, Wolf was terrified to bring it up. If he brought it up, he didn't want Tom to use it as an excuse not to open up to anyone.

"Feel up for school today?" he asked and was pleasantly surprised when Tom bobbed his head up and down.

"Yeah," he said. "I was talking to Tammy on Facebook and she invited me to study with her during lunch."

"Who's Tammy?" Wolf asked. Tom had never talked about any of his friends or classmates. The only thing he'd ever said about his family was to mention his parents' horrible divorce.

"She was my lab partner last term," the kid told him and Wolf nodded.

"Do you like her?"

"Not really," Tom said and then looked up in surprise. "I mean, not like that. She's a friend. Just a friend. Sort of."

Wolf smirked and did his best not to laugh. Underneath all the terrible nightmares and phobias, Tom was still a teenaged boy.

"Alright," Wolf said, eyeing the boy's uncomfortable look with humor. "Let's start getting out of here."

00000

The school still hadn't found someone to replace the tutor and they had come to the point that they could no longer do Tom's school work together. Wolf didn't really understand chemistry that well and so they had spent their morning in the conference room doodling, talking, and staring at the ceiling. It had been the most pointless morning Wolf had recently been forced to endure.

"What time is lunch?" he asked Tom for what was probably the third time. He couldn't remember.

"Soon," the boy replied engrossed in whatever he was drawing. He didn't seem to mind Wolf repeating himself every few minutes or so.

"Can I ask you something?" Tom finally said. He looked at Wolf with an intense gaze. A gaze Wolf wasn't used to getting from this kid.

"I suppose," Wolf gripped. "As long as it's interesting."

"When were you in training?"

"What?" the soldier asked, not expecting that line of questioning.

"When were you in training?" Tom repeated. Wolf considered telling him that he wasn't supposed to say which was likely true considering that he was on an official assignment and therefore not supposed to give personal information. In fact, Mrs. Jones had made it a point to tell him not to give personal information to anyone involved with this detail.

But this was Tom and he was finally talking and asking his own questions and logging back into Facebook. He didn't see the harm in answering that one question.

"Almost a year and a half ago," he told him. "Why?"

"Your name," Tom mused, "well, your code name sounds familiar. I've heard it before."

"Where?" Wolf asked interested. He had been suspecting for some time that Tom's memory was starting to come back to him piece by piece. The kid had mentioned deja vu before.

"Somewhere," Tom mumbled. He was staring off into space and Wolf didn't dare call his name or try to snap him out of it. The kid was concentrating really hard at something just beyond his conscious and Wolf wanted to know what it was. "On a plane."

"On a plane?" Wolf asked, surprised by the answer. "From a passenger?"

"Yeah," Tom replied. "He was a passenger. He told me something else too."

"What?"

"I don't know," Tom said, blinking, the memory gone. "Whatever it was it was important to him though."

"Do you know who it was?" Wolf asked. Tom shook his head. "Can you remember what he looked like?"

"No, I lost that."

Wolf knew that was the end to conversation. Tom didn't have anything left to tell him but Wolf was going have plenty to tell Snake later that night.

00000

Tammy turned out to be a nice enough girl. She came to the conference room with her lunch and her chemistry book and notes. Around bites of egg sandwich she helped Tom go through some of his chemistry worksheets. She was smart.

Blond hair that wasn't styled and didn't lay flat, brown eyes, and sharp tongue, she was the type of girl who Wolf wouldn't have thought capable of dealing with someone as damaged as Tom. But she was good with him. She went through everything patiently but wouldn't let him give up.

When it was time for her to go back to class Wolf followed her into the corridor.

"You were really good with him," he told her just outside the conference room. He had shut the door to make sure Tom didn't overhear.

"I had a big brother in the army," she told him. "He has PTSD too."

"Oh," Wolf replied not really knowing what to say to that. The girl just smiled at him.

"It's alright," she said. "I didn't really know Tom before but I'm probably the only person in the school who isn't afraid of him anymore."

"What was he like?" Wolf asked. "Before?"

"Really funny," she said without even thinking. "He had this way of making people laugh without ever saying a word. He could just make a silly face and everyone would practically die with laughter. But he was never funny at someone else's expense. He always said that was lazy comedy."

Wolf smiled. Yeah, that sounded like the boy he knew. Even just a little.

"What about friends?" he asked. "What do his closest friends think?"

Tammy gave him a strange look. It was the type of look that said he had missed something. Something important.

"What?" he asked.

"You really don't know do you?" she asked. "Tom didn't tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

"About Alex?" Wolf shook his head, waiting for her to continue and she did despite the fact the bell was ringing and she was late for class. "Alex was Tom's best friend. They were like brothers. Tom disappeared a little bit after Alex did but only Tom came back. Everyone's saying that Alex is dead which is creepy considering."

"Considering what?"

"That Tom is living in Alex's house," she replied and Wolf was shocked. He had assumed the place had been an MI6 safe house. Who was Alex?

"Where are Tom's parents?" he asked hoping she would know.

"I've only heard rumors," she warned him but told him anyways. "Tom's mom had her rights taken away. Something about extreme neglect. His dad didn't want the responsibility of taking care of someone so damaged. And they say the big brother doesn't want anything to do with any of them."

"How do the students know all this?" he asked suddenly realizing that Tammy had a lot of information for someone who hadn't been close friends with Tom.

"People talk," she shrugged. "Especially about Alex."

"Why?"

"He had a reputation," she told him. "He was always disappearing and showing back up with bruises or broken arms. He would disappear for weeks at a time and the only person who seemed to know anything about it all was Tom. The gossips were interested and stuff like that gets around."

Wolf nodded and thanked her. Tammy left to go back to class but the soldier just kept standing in the hallway. Because he was fairly certain that he had figured out this Alex kid. He can't believe he hadn't figured it out before. But he was almost certain that this Alex was the same kid he had known as Cub.

The soldier couldn't believe he hadn't pieced it together before. Tom's hints that he was friends with an SAS member; the fact that Tom kept asking if Wolf knew his friend; and now there was the fact that this SAS friend had told Tom Wolf's codename.

He had heard the kid's name only once before but he had never used it. Never cared to use it. And now all he needed was proof. Going to the front desk where Ms. Bedfordshire was sitting he greeted her kindly.

"What can I help you with?" she asked politely.  
>"Do you have a yearbook?" he asked. "From last year perhaps?"<p>

"Yes," she said and pulled one out from a cabinet behind her. She handed it to him and immediately went searching through the class photos. It took him a minute but he finally found a picture of this Alex kid. He looked just as Wolf had remembered him. Blond, good looking, and athletic. Just a normal kid.

Cub was the friend that Tom had lost.

Cub was the reason all of this had been done to Tom. And if Tom was correct, Cub didn't even know.

"Do you know an Alex Rider?' he asked and Ms. Bedfordshire's face darkened a little.

"Of course I do," she said. "Or at least I did. Went off the rails that one."

"What happened?"

"Well, his Uncle died. That was the only family Alex really had and after the funeral he just started dissapearing a lot. Sickness, they said. I called it rehab." Wolf had to fight down the urge to correct her; to defend Cub. He may not have liked Cub, ever really, but the kid certainly didn't deserve to be talked about like that.

"Where is he know?" he asked, hoping that she knew and that the location wasn't the local graveyard.

"America last I heard. Friends of the family took him after his last guardian died."

"His last guardian died?" he asked, shocked. Did death just follow this kid around?

"Yes," the woman told him. "Quite sad too. She was a very wonderful lady."

Wolf nodded and then handed her the yearbook back. His mind was reeling. What had Cub been working on that would have caused such devastation to his best friend? And why had Scorpia chosen to kidnap Tom? If they had wanted to use him against Cub they would have told him about him. But Tom had remembered that his friend hadn't known he was there.

Rounding the corner to the hallway that led to the conference room Wolf stopped suddenly when he saw Tom at the end. He was standing in front of the window looking intently across the playing fields outside to a line of trees and blocked the school from the road.

Coming to stand behind the kid Wolf peered out as well. There was a figure standing just at the treeline. He was in a red jacket, blue jeans, and trainers. Wolf couldn't make out his face and his hair was covered with the hood of his jacket.

"Do you see him too?" Tom whispered and it pained Wolf to note that he sounded half terrified.

"Yes," Wolf said. "Who is he?"

"Can't you tell?" Tom asked no longer whispering but still very quietly. "It's him."

"Who's him?"

"My friend."

That was all Wolf needed before he was running out of the front office to the front door. He ran to the side of the building but when he turned the corner that figure was gone. He looked at Tom through the window but the boy didn't look worried.

In fact, he was smiling.

00000

*This is an actual Facebook thread. Google "girl get's boyfriend's face tattooed on arm after one week". It's technically an internet prank but it was hilarious nonetheless.


	5. Chapter 5

The thought that Cub was back in London made Wolf very nervous. He wasn't sure if it was because he had come to think of Cub as a bad omen or if it was because the idea of Cub coming for Tom was detrimental. Even after seeing him, Tom couldn't put a name to the face he'd seen. Snake was certain that Cub was the face Tom had seen at his window.

"If this really is Cub's house," Snake said that night after Wolf had filled him in. "Then he'll likely try to make first contact here."

"Except he'll know we've been here so long that the odds are the same for the both of us if a fight breaks out. He doesn't have home court advantage anymore."

"Maybe," Snake mused. Tom was in bed and the two of them were hiding in the kitchen in the hopes that it would be impossible for Tom to accidentally overhear them in there. "But what does he want?"

"To see Tom?" Wolf guessed with a shrug. "Tom said that Cub didn't know about the torture."

"Well, clearly he knows now," Snake said and pulled a face as an unpleasant thought filtered through his head. "Except, who told him? And where has he been all this time?"

"That's a good question," Wolf replied truthfully. Cub hadn't come back for no reason and his reason was most likely Tom. But why not make contact already? Was he aware of how deeply psychological Tom's injuries were and thus was too afraid of causing further harm by simply walking into the house? Wolf would like to think that was the case but in his gut he knew it was something worse.

"Do you think Cub is here because he knows that Tom is still considered a witness?" Snake asked voicing his ideas as they came to him.

"I think he's here because his friend was hurt and no one bothered to let him know about it," Wolf said knowing that while Cub may have been good at his job he was rarely that cold. "But I also think he's here for revenge."

"Revenge?" Snake asked, like the thought of retribution on Tom's behalf had never occurred to him. It probably hadn't. In all fairness to him Tom was technically just another job. He cared about the kid, but mostly just on principle and not because he'd developed any emotional attachment. Snake was too professional for something like that.

"Yes," Wolf said quietly. "I think Cub is perfectly capable of revenge."

"So do I," Snake agreed. "We need to report this."

"I'll do it tomorrow," Wolf said. "And I'm going to ask for a third person."

"Really?" Snake asked, surprised by the thought that they would need it. Cub may have been a very unexpected aspect to an otherwise routine babysitting operation but he was hardly the enemy. Cub would have no reason to hurt Tom or the people trying to protect him from the people that actually did want to hurt him.

"If Tom really does know something, then Cub being around is only going to make what's left of Scorpia nervous. They might think that Tom would only tell Cub what he knew or that Cub might be able to jog Tom's memory."

"Either way the target on Tom's back just got bigger," Snake finished. "Great."

"No kidding," Wolf said, acknowledging his teammate's sarcasm. He was certain that Tom was about to be in much more danger than before and they would definitely need a third person if they were going to field off another attack.

00000

Mrs. Jones wasn't the type of person to see someone without at least six months of careful planning and research. She was too good at her job to just randomly have lunch with an operative or even a civilian. But she saw Wolf that next day. She had refused to meet him at the office and instead had opted to meet him at a very public park that was known for its food trucks.

He indulged her and even paid for her sausage and bun. They sat on a bench and to anyone looking they seemed like friends or coworkers out for a quick lunch. The fake feel of it all made Wolf uncomfortable but he hid it well and ate without choking to death.

It was obvious why she had refused to talk about what he wanted to talk about in the office. She didn't want anyone to know they were meeting and she definitely didn't want anyone to know they were meeting about Cub.

"He was in America the last I knew," she said after he made his initial inquiry following the small speech he made about the recent events at the school. He left out the part about Tom seeing a face in his window. There was no way to know if Tom had hallucinated that or not. He had also requested the third set of hands. She had approved it without any fight. "A nice family had taken him in after his last guardian had been killed."

"How did she die?" he asked. The more he learned about Cub, the more he felt sorry for him. The kid had lived a hard life.

"Scorpia," Mrs. Jones told him simply. "It was a setup from the very beginning. A horrible one at that. Cub left England and the job."

"You just let him go?" he asked, disbelievingly.

"I never wanted him to work for us in the first place," she said. "But I had no authority to correct the situation until recently. I let him leave the country. The Bank even paid for the ticket."

"And what about Tom?" he asked, getting to what he really wanted to talk about. "How does he fit into all of this?"

"Tom was the first to be taken," she said. "Rider never knew and I didn't tell him. I was afraid he would use it as an excuse to wage a war on what was left of Scorpia."

"What happened to Tom? Really?"

"He was tortured," she replied and he didn't appreciate how easily that sentence came out of her mouth. It was if she didn't care. "But he also saw something while he was there."

"Like what?" he asked, hoping for a straight answer. He was actually surprised to hear one.

"Tom Harris wasn't rescued. He escaped. We had no idea he'd even been there until he stumbled out into the open and the soldiers securing the base found him wandering around bleeding and crying. They took him to a hospital and on the chopper he mumbled something about plans and bombs."

"You're telling me he knows about a terrorist attack?" Wolf questioned.

"That's exactly what I'm telling you," she said. "Scorpia had managed to destroy most of the evidence but there was enough to suggest that Tom wasn't just dreaming. He really did see their plans. All of them. We have no idea where or when this attack will take place.

"Furthermore, Tom Harris is the only one still living that can tell us what he saw. And that secret is locked inside his mind under all of that trauma and pain."

"Is that why you brought in Snake?" he asked. "To make him well enough to remember?" She shook her head.

"Not entirely. Snake's medical background could only take him so far in Tom's healing process," she said. "He was chosen because we thought he would be able to help Tom remember Alex. You were chosen for the same reason. The doctors think that if he could just remember Alex the rest will come flooding back as well. We never imagined that he would start to trust you."

Wolf tried not to feel insulted considering he thought the exact same thing. But it was one thing for him to think that about himself and quite another for Mrs. Jones to say it to his face. She set her paper plate to the side and popped a peppermint candy into her mouth.

"It was a surprise to us all when Snake reported that Tom was opening up a little about what had happened in the compound," she continued, oblivious to his inner monologue.

"It was a surprise to me too," he agreed. "Do you think Cub will try to make contact?"

"I think it's inevitable," she said. "I also expect to see him soon. I'm sure he'll be very cross with me." Wolf couldn't tell if she was trying to tell him that Alex was going to try to kill her or whether she thought the kid just wanted to yell at her. Both courses of action seemed equally as likely for Alex Rider. Wolf knew that if it had been him, he would have taken the more violent path.

"Should I allow him to make contact with Tom?" he asked. That was really the whole reason for this meeting. He didn't know what the official policy regarding Alex Rider was. They were currently living in his house and protecting his best friend. Wolf didn't want to arrest the kid but he would if he had to. That was the job.

"Yes," Mrs. Jones said. Wolf was a little surprised by that. He hadn't expected her to actually allow a reunion between Tom and Alex after all she'd done to conceal it from him. "There's little use in fighting Alex at this point. And perhaps Tom will tell him something that he won't tell even you."

"I don't think Tom's actively concealing anything," he told her and she gave him a sharp look.

"I don't think so either," she said. "But the mind is a funny thing sometimes. He may know in his heart that there are things he should only tell Alex without ever consciously making that decision."

"What happened to Tom's parents?" he asked suddenly wanting to get the answers he wanted before she decided to leave. Tom's friend Tammy had told him the rumors. Now he wanted to know the truth. "Aren't they wondering what happened to their kid?"

"Not everyone's parents are concerned about the welfare of their child," she replied coldly and Wolf got the distinct impression that she didn't like the boy's parents. He raised his eyebrows. "It was easy enough to make them go away. A couple of pardons. Some money. A plane ticket."

"They sold him to you?" he asked, disgusted.

"Tom isn't property," she replied. "All I did was bribe them into signing the emancipation papers."

"Tom's emancipated?"

"Yes," she said and stood up, preparing to leave. "And the Royal and General Bank has power of attorney until he's cleared by a doctor as to the stability of his mind. Have good day Wolf."

With that she was gone. He sat on the bench for the next hour just thinking over what she had said. Mrs. Jones was a strange mixture of concern and cold-hearted maneuvering. He couldn't fault her for it though. Lives depended on Tom getting his head on straight enough to remember the worst moment of his life. It seemed cruel but necessary. He wondered what Cub would have to say about it.

He was sure it wouldn't be long before he could just ask the kid face to face.

00000

"How did he even find out?" Snake asked after Wolf told him everything Mrs. Jones had said. They kept Tom home from school that day not only because Cub's sudden appearance had freaked them out but because Tom had taken a renewed interest in his paper clips. He seemed to be trying to make up for those days he hadn't worked on them. He had gone through three boxes in just that one morning and was currently working on the last box in the house.

"Cub probably has connections," Wolf said. He wasn't really concerned with how Cub had found out about Tom. He was more concerned in how Cub was reacting to the knowledge. "That's hardly the point."

"No, I guess not," Snake agreed. "It's interesting though. How everything always seems to come back to him."

"You mean how they chose the detail?" Wolf asked and Snake nodded. That had been an interesting tidbit and Wolf was certain that Mrs. Jones was going to continue choosing people that way. He was almost positive as to who was going to show up next.

"Do you think we should tell Tom?" he asked. Wolf shrugged.

"I think so," he said, making a decision on the fly. He hadn't thought about whether to tell Tom or not but it seemed like a good idea. He just hoped the kid didn't crawl back into himself. They went out to the living room and Wolf took a careful seat next Tom on the couch. The boy didn't bother looking up from his paper clips.

"Tom, I need to talk to you," he said.

"About my friend?" he asked and Wolf looked at Snake in surprise. Snake raised his eyebrows but didn't say anything.

"Yes," Wolf said. "What do you remember about him?"

Tom shrugged.

"Not much," he said. "He's my friend. He'll fix it."

"Fix what?" Wolf asked cautiously, remembering what Jones had said about Tom unconsciously hiding things from them.

"The thing," Tom replied looking up from his paper clips to give Wolf a head on gaze that seemed both hard and vulnerable at the same time. It rendered Wof silent. "The bad thing. He'll fix that really bad thing."

"What's the bad thing?" Snake asked, when Wolf didn't make a move to speak. Tom looked at Snake as well.

"I think it's an attack," Tom said. "But it doesn't really matter now because my friend will fix it."

He patted Wolf on the knee as if to comfort him and went back to his paper clips.

"My friend always fixes stuff like this."

"Tom are you aware that your friend is back in town?" he asked wanting to make sure that Tom understood that Cub was back. Tom nodded.

"Yes," he said. "Remember, Wolf? We saw him outside the school. You tried to chase him." Wolf nodded.

"I remember," he said. "He may want to contact you. Are you alright with that?"

"Yeah," Tom said but he sounded very unsure.

"What's wrong?"

"He's going to be so mad."

"At you?" Snake asked, also picking up on Tom's reluctance. The kid shook his head.

"No, at everyone else," Tom replied and Wolf didn't doubt that Cub would indeed be very angry at the situation. Mrs. Jones had made it clear that she thought the same thing. "He might be mad enough to kill that peppermint lady."

"Do you think that he will?" Wolf asked, curious about what Tom remembered about Cub's nature. Tom thought about it for a moment and then finally shook his head.

"No," he said. "But he's still going to be really mad. That's kind of sad, you know."

Wolf nodded, not because he wanted Tom to think he agreed with him but because he really did think it was sad. Neither Tom nor Cub deserved what had happened to them. Nobody could go back and fix it no matter how much they wanted to and that really was sad.

But there was also no use in trying to figure out what Cub really wanted at this point. They would know soon enough and Wolf was ready to know. He was tired of everything being so sad.


	6. Chapter 6

Despite the impending sense of doom that Cub's semi-presence had left on Wolf, the kid didn't seem interested in coming around. Wolf was jumpy for an entire day and a half thinking that each bump and noise was Cub breaking into his own house. He chastised himself quite completely for being so idiotic. It was just Cub and he meant them no harm. Everyone knew that.

Knowing that still didn't make him any less relieved to hear the doorbell ring. He answered it, leaving Tom on the couch for a moment. The man on the other side was a friendly face, grinning widely, seemingly pleased to be assigned to the detail.

"Eagle," he greeted.

"Roomie," he replied still extremely happy. Wolf wanted to punch him in the hopes that it would make him take the situation more seriously. He knew Eagle too well to think that would actually work so he just stepped aside and let the other soldier enter the house.

"You've been fully briefed?" he asked, wondering if Jones had given his friend the same bare bones information she'd given Wolf.

"Yes I have," Eagle said. "I think got it all at least. We'll see."

Wolf snorted and made a motion for Eagle to follow him back to the living room where Tom was stringing paper clips as if his life depended on it.

"Tom," Wolf said and the boy looked up with wide eyes as if he hadn't realized that Wolf had left the room in the first place. "This is Eagle. He's going to be helping us out for a while."

"You knew my friend!" Tom exclaimed very suddenly and very excitedly after eyeing Eagle up and down with an interested expression on his face.

"Um," Eagle said, clearly uncomfortable and confused and looked to Wolf for help.

"He means Cub," Wolf said which only increased Eagle's confusion. He had not been told who Tom was in relation to themselves. Wolf would explain it later. "Snake's here too. Remember him?"

"He knew my friend too," Tom contributed, trying to be helpful. Eagle just nodded.

"Nice paperclips," he said lamely but Tom smiled nonetheless.

"Do you remember my friend?" he asked. "Wolf does and so does Snake."

"Yes, I remember him," Eagle replied, shifting from foot to foot. Tom went back to his paper clips after that no longer interested in the newcomer. Wolf took Eagle to the room he'd be bunking in-it used to be an office-and explained everything to him while he settled in.

"Oh my god!" was all the other soldier had to say when Wolf finished telling him that Cub was back in London, quite possibly to get revenge for what had happened to his friend. "Do you think he'll come here?"

"It very possible and Jones doesn't want us to stop him from making contact."

"Well, it's not like he's a threat to Tom. Unless you count the fact that Scorpia is probably hoping that he'll show up looking for Tom and then they'll kill them both." Wolf nodded. He hadn't considered that until now.

"Cub must have thought of that too," Snake said from the doorway. He had just woken up for his night shift. Eagle and Snake shook hands and then continued the conversation as if this wasn't the first time they'd seen each other in over a year. "That's probably why he's been watching from a distance. It's too dangerous to make contact."

"That still doesn't explain what Scorpia's up to," Eagle replied.

"They don't want me to stop the thing," Tom's voice replied behind Snake. He pushed the soldier out of the way and came into the room. He crawled up onto the bed beside Wolf and pulled his knees up to his chin. He gave them all a very wide eyed stare that quite unnerved Wolf.

"What thing?" Eagle asked, curious.

"The bad thing. The one I saw when I escaped my cell."

"What did you see?" Wolf asked, hoping to get a little more information. Tom's face was now scrunched up in concentration as he tried to remember.

"A blueprint," he said finally. "A blueprint of a building." Nobody moved; nobody breathed. Tom was talking about the target of Scorpia's next big attack. This was the information everyone wanted. He was starting to remember. Wolf could feel his heart pounding in his chest and he had to forcibly remind himself not to push too hard.

"It was an office building!" Tom exclaimed, proud of himself.

"Did you see a name?" Wolf asked but Tom shook his head.

"There were a lot of arrows and colors and I tried to look at it all but my feet hurt from the broken glass. I left. And then I lost it all."

Wolf nodded. He was starting to recognize when Tom was done talking about things he was starting to remember. He took Tom back downstairs after that and let Snake and Eagle discuss what the kid had just revealed.

00000

The next time the doorbell rang was just after dinner.

Wolf and Tom were the only two still downstairs because Tom had wanted to watch a movie. The other two were upstairs working on their individual daily reports. Getting up from the couch he went to answer it and was surprised to find a nervous looking Tammy on the other side of the door.

"Hello?" he greeted.

"Hi," she replied nervously. "I know this is really, really weird. But I was told to give this to you." She held out a blank envelope that was filled with what felt like paper.

"What is this?" he asked, suspicious.

"I can't tell you," she said biting her lip, her eyes darted to the side as if to find an escape of some sort. "I promised."

"Promised who?" he asked.

"I just promised!" she snapped. "If you want to know so bad then just look inside. It's a letter." With that, she pivoted and stormed back to the sidewalk, disappearing as quickly as she came. Wolf shut the door and against his better judgement opened the envelope in the hall. As it turned out the letter just a scribbled explanation from Cub and some pictures of three men Wolf didn't know.

_These are Scorpia agents. One has been posing as a Brookland janitor and the other two have been watching the house. Be careful. There might be more circling you. I'll make contact as soon as I can._

_Cub_

Wolf stood in complete shock trying to process the fact that not only had Cub been watching them without anyone knowing, but he had picked out Scorpia agents that had somehow slipped by Jones's people. He wondered what the kid's end game was. Was he only interested in revenge? Was he hoping to take Tom back to wherever he had been the entire time?

How had he known these were Scorpia's people and not Jones's? Was he in contact with Jones? There were so many questions that needed to be answered that couldn't be answered until later when Wolf would be able to safely slip away from Tom. Snake had been right to say that Tom was following him.

The kid was watching him extremely closely as if he expected to be betrayed at any moment. Or as if he expected Wolf to simply disappear. Wolf wondered if Tom had been seeing Cub. He stuffed the papers back into the envelope and then tucked it into the back pocket of his jeans.

"Hey Tom," he said as he paused the movie. Tom looked at him expectantly. "Have you see Cub around?"

"No," Tom said. They had been referring to Tom's friend as 'Cub' for a few days now but Tom himself had never said Cub's code name or even his real name.

"Are you sure? It's important."

"No, why?"

"I think he's been watching the house," Wolf admitted. He was breaking every rule in the book by telling Tom that but he had been breaking rules from the moment Tom had started talking to him. He was not supposed to ask the kid questions and he certainly hadn't been abiding by that rule. Some how he didn't think it mattered anymore though.

Jones had known that Tom was starting to open up to him and she had seen no reason to stop it. He was starting to think that she was looking forward to Tom opening up even more. After all, they needed the information he had locked up in his head.

"That doesn't surprise me," Tom said cutting into his thoughts. "This is his house."

Wolf bit his lip. He made a rash decision to try a different tactic with Tom. They had only been asking about things concerning Cub's job. Things Tom wasn't supposed to know to begin with. So he decided that maybe it was time to ask something else. Something that didn't hurt quite so much.

He sat down next to Tom and asked, "How did you meet Cub?" If Tom was surprised he didn't show it.

"He saved me from a beating from a bully," Tom said immediately. "We were best friends after that. People used to pick on him too, when he changed."

"How do you mean changed?"

"He would disappear a lot. And he stopped talking to everyone. Even to me. At least until the plane."

"He told you the truth on the plane?" Wolf asked knowing that Cub had probably told Tom the truth about MI6. He wondered why Cub had picked then of all times.

"Yeah," Tom nodded. "He cried then. I remember because I had to hold his hand for a while like when we were little and I would get scared. I keep expecting him to show up now because I'm scared and I know he knows that. I miss him."

"You two were really close?" Wolf asked. Tom nodded.

"We were best friends. I can remember that. It's one of the only things I can remember about him. I can't remember his name most of the time and I can't remember his birthday or his favorite color. But I can remember that we were best friends. I can remember that I waited for him to find me and that he never came because he couldn't."

"You once said that you could hear him screaming through the walls. Did you ever call out to him?"

"No, they gagged me while he was there. They wanted me to hear him break because I told the crazy pain man-I _told_ him-that there was nothing they could do to make him break. I was right in the end. He beat them and now they're trying to beat me. But they won't."

"Why not?" Wolf asked, barely able to ask the question he was so shocked by what he was hearing. He knew that Cub was strong and while he had known that Tom wasn't completely beyond hope, he hadn't thought that he had anywhere near the same streak of strength that Cub had. It was no wonder that the two had been such close friends. Not even international terrorist organizations could separate them.

"Because he's back. He'll fix it. He always does and when he sees how badly they hurt me he's going to be so mad."

Wolf didn't doubt that. He didn't doubt that at all. Cub was far too skilled and far too pissed not to exact revenge. Even Jones had known that. She had even thought his anger would include her for helping to conceal it from him.

"How do you think he found out about you?" Wolf asked.

"He has a lot of friends," Tom said with a shrug. "I don't know who they are though. He tried to protect me from all that. You know because of all the bad people." Wolf nodded. That he could easily understand. There was a reason they used code names and nobody ever talked about themselves unless it was with somebody they were willing to die for. This was the exact reason. What had happened to Tom was the worst thing anyone could imagine.

"Wolf?" Tom asked quietly, as if he was afraid to ask something.

"Yeah, Tom?"

"I can't remember what he looks like," he said. "Will you tell me?"

Wolf did his best to describe everything he knew about Cub from his looks to how he acted when on the job. Tom listened with complete concentration, trying to take in every detail of what Wolf could remember from his own limited experience of his friend.

"Don't forget the plane," Eagle said having come down the stairs with Snake without either of them noticing. Tom looked over eager for a second opinion.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Even though Wolf picked on Cub all throughout training," Eagle began sitting on the other side of Tom, "Cub made sure that Wolf wasn't binned."  
>"How?"<p>

"He choked on our first parachute jump," Eagle said happily. "He got scared so Cub snuck up behind him and kicked him right out of the plane."

Tom giggled which almost made up for Eagle telling the story in the first place. Almost.

Eagle grinned at him cheekily over the boy's head and Wolf wondered if he could get away with punching him.

00000

After Tom went to bed that night Wolf stepped out to get some air. He didn't leave the front walk just looked up at the sky and thought about what Tom had told him about Cub. Even though Tom couldn't remember his face or even his name half the time, Tom knew in his heart that Cub would come for him in the end.

He knew that Cub would come to keep Scorpia away.

Wolf thought that was pretty amazing.

He took a deep sigh and happened to look back down to earth. There across the street was Cub with his red hood pulled up. The kid was watching the house and he made no move to leave when Wolf saw him. He didn't dare call out to him in case Scorpia agents were around. They had only just sent the images to MI6. It was unlikely that those men had been found yet. There was also no telling if there were more than those three hanging around.

Cub raised his hand and waved. He even managed a smile and then he did something Wolf thought was unnecessarily dangerous. He crossed the street and came to stand in front of Wolf still just as casual as before.

"How is he?" he asked not bothering with hello. Wolf hadn't expected him to.

"He's getting better," Wolf said. "Little by little. He remembers you some."  
>"I know," Cub said. "Jones keeps me updated." Wolf was not surprised. Jones had expected to be contacted eventually. He was also not surprised that she had been handing Cub information about Tom. Even he could tell that she had been feeling guilty over what had happened to both boys.<p>

"He says he misses you."

Cub smiled sadly at that and even though he didn't say it Wolf could tell that Cub missed Tom too.

"I can't talk to him yet. It's still too dangerous."

Wolf was going to ask him what he was doing but a car down the street flashed its lights. The soldier and the kid both turned sharply and Wolf reached for his gun but Cub held his hand out to stop him.

"It's okay," he said. "It's my ride." And before Wolf could stop him the kid was down the street and in the car. As it drove past Wolf noted the make, color, and license plate. He also saw that the driver was another teenager. Some girl Wolf had never seen before.

_What the hell?_


	7. Chapter 7

This chapter is for GreenEyedShadoWriter for waiting so patiently. Thanks!

00000

It had been days since Cub had made contact with Wolf and he was quite certain that the kid was watching them. He had no proof of this except that his gut was telling him that Cub was close, he was watching, and he was terrified of coming too close. Tom was stringing paper clips together like mad going through six, seven boxes a day.

The kid was hardly speaking and when he did speak it was only to ask about food or his friend. He was having wicked nightmares again as well. And, as if they didn't have enough to worry about, there was the problem of the looming terrorist attack that Tom was the only witness to. The kid had seen the plans and everyone knew it. Wolf just hoped that Cub would be able to figure it out before someone lost patience and shot up the house.

At least he could be relatively certain that SCORPIA was having a hard time of it. That was perhaps the biggest benefit of Cub being back. Wolf had traced down the car he'd seen Cub get into and it had come back as being reported stolen. It was owned by someone from out of town and it had been stolen at random.

They were waiting now and Wolf hated waiting. Unfortunately, his job was to protect Tom and listen when he spoke which meant that Wolf was doing nothing but waiting, watching telly, and eating ice cream. He was quite worried that he was getting soft.

On Saturday Wolf was watching a reality show with a bowl of ice cream in hand with Tom sitting by his knee stringing together his paper clips. Eagle was being just as useless in the armchair, reading a Harry Potter book he'd found stashed somewhere. They were constantly finding little things like that; little reminders that this had been someone's home, that this had been Cub's home. Books, movies, and video games were still on their shelves in the living room. Football gear, bikes, rollerblades, water guns, and more were still in the garage. Eagle had found a lost piece of homework in his office-turned-bedroom.

There were no photos and no paperwork but the house had been lived in. After finding out who it had belonged to, Wolf couldn't help but feel like the place is haunted. Shaking himself of these thoughts, he nudged Tom's shoulder with his knee. The kid looked at him expectantly.

"Why that combination?" he asked, nodding at the paper clips.

"Because that's how they go," Tom replied as if that was obvious. To him it probably was.

"Who told you it had to be that way?" he pressed, genuinely curious.

"I don't know," Tom shrugged, looking back to his paper clips. "It was in my head when I woke up in the hospital. I guess it's important."

"Must be," Wolf agreed and committed the pattern to memory-red, blue, green, yellow. If the kid thought it was so important that it would be his first memory upon waking then Wolf might as well tuck it away for later. After all, it might not be gibberish but an actual piece of genuine information. Wolf was positive that Tom had quite a bit of useful information rattling around behind several layers of crazy.

"Come here," Wolf said, patting the cushion next to him. Tom scrambled up and pulled at the sleeves of his hoodie nervously. Wolf handed him the remote. "Find me something better to watch."

"Like what?" Tom asked, holding the remote carefully as if he thought he might break it.

"Just press some buttons," Wolf replied. Eagle was still looking at his book but he hadn't turned the page since this conversation had started. He was listening to every word. "You'll find something."

Tom followed his directions and they ended up with a cartoon channel that Wolf had never heard of.

"Do you remember watching this?"

"I used to watch this with my brother," Tom told him. "Every Saturday morning we would wake up late and Mom would make pancakes and the three of us would eat them in front of the telly. We would watch cartoons for hours, curled up together, just being together. We stopped when Dad moved back in. He didn't want to watch kids shows on his day off. I remember that now."

Wolf patted his knee trying to be as comforting as he could.

"Do you want some ice cream?" he asked. He would have offered pancakes but he wasn't very good at making them. Tom smiled sweetly.

"Yes, please."

"Well get yourself in the kitchen and get some. You have arms and legs."

Tom rolled his eyes, handed Wolf the remote with much more force than necessary, and went to get himself a big bowl of ice cream. Eagle finally turned the page.

00000

Wolf and Eagle stepped outside for some fresh air and a private conversation. Snake was still sleeping off his night shift and Wolf had left Tom to his paper clips with firm instructions not to move.

"That was real smooth," Eagle said. "Pulling out that memory like that."

"Yeah, he seems to do okay with that approach. I've done something similar before."

"Hmmm," Eagle hummed. "Regardless, I think it's weird how attached to you he is. You've never been particularly warm and fuzzy. Remember the last kid?"

Since the last kid had been Cub Wolf thought that Eagle was definitely poking fun at him. He scowled at his friend and gave him the finger.

"Screw you," he said. "Besides that was completely different. Cub was a kid in the SAS which is a stupid thing to be. Tom is just, um...he's just-"

"He's just a sweet little kid?"

Wolf would not want to ever phrase it like that out loud but that was essentially what he was thinking. Tom was very much a normal kid who had been swept up in a world that wanted nothing more than to kill him. Brutally. And Wolf was ultimately apart of that world. He killed people and he got paid for it. This didn't diminish how he felt about the kid though; he genuinely wanted to help Tom. And not just with his little terrorist problem but with his head problems too. He just couldn't help but like Tom; he was getting attached too.

"I wouldn't get too attached if I were you," Eagle warned, proving yet again that he knew Wolf far too well. "He's not a puppy and you could be pulled out at any time."

"I doubt that," Wolf told him, thinking about everything Jones had told him about Tom only talking to him. He doubted very much that anyone wanted to disrupt that relationship. Not to mention that Cub more or less trusted K-Unit with the continued care of his friend. Wolf had a feeling that they weren't going anywhere.

"All the same, I really don't think-" Eagle began but was forcibly cut off. He grunted, gripped his shoulder, and toppled over. Wolf instantly ducked behind the fence despite the fact that he had yet to understand why Eagle had dropped in the first place. It took him but a moment to realize they were being shot at. A red dot from a sniper's rifle was visible on the lawn and Eagle was clutching his arm with copious amount of blood was spilling through his fingers.

Wolf took a second to appreciate Eagle's habit of moving around when he spoke. He had taken a small step just before he'd been shot. If he had been standing still like a normal person, he would now be dead. Wolf's gun was in his hand and he was trying to follow the little light to its owner but he couldn't get a good view over the fence. Moving towards the house meant he would be out in the open and would likely be dead in an instant.

He couldn't call for Snake without risking the man walking right into the line of fire. They were well and truly stuck until the sniper either moved or gave up. He just hoped Eagle didn't bleed out. Out of the corner of his eye Wolf saw someone running along the sidewalk on the other side of the street. Wolf immediately recognized Cub. Through the wrought iron bars of the fence and through a hole in the bushes lining the sidewalk, Wolf watched as Cub quietly disappeared into a house directly across the street.

Wolf knew for a fact that the house wasn't empty and that the old couple that lived there, Mrs. and Mr. Henderson, were perfectly innocent if a little too nosy. He wondered if they were dead now. He also wondered if Cub would be able to sneak up on the sniper. Even as well trained as Cub was, it would be extremely difficult. The little red dot suddenly jerked and Wolf desperately searched for it, finding it searching at the window. Someone must have attracted his attention inside the house.

"Can we get inside without getting shot?" Eagle asked, gritting his teeth and cursing under his breath. Wolf shook his head and made a motion for him to remain quiet. Unfortunately, Eagle was the only one who was willing to comply with Wolf's request for quiet. Behind him, half way down the street, a car exploded. The force of the bomb sent the car flying into the air toppling end over end before landing in the street. One of the tires was rolling down the street by itself.

Wolf forced himself to turn around and search for the red dot. Not finding it, Wolf considered the sniper to be well and truly distracted and grabbed Eagle, forcing him to his feet and towards the house. They made it to the front door just as Snake did. The man took one look at the situation, took Eagle from Wolf, and maneuvered him to the garage where a car was parked and waiting for them.

"Tom's in the living room," Snake told him and Wolf ran down the short hallway and into the room. Tom was on the floor, his knees tucked tightly to his chest, head bowed, eyes shut tight, and hands clasped over his ears. He had clearly heard he explosion and it had clearly frightened him. Wolf wished he had the time to make the kid feel better but he didn't. He grabbed his arm and forced him up. Tom jerked as if ready to pull away and run but then his eyes settled on Wolf and he allowed the soldier to pull him out of the house and into the garage.

Tom settled in the passenger seat. Snake was field dressing Eagle's shoulder wound as quickly as he could in backseat.

"Lock your door," Wolf told him. Tom did as was told and Wolf started the car at the same time he pressed the open button on the garage door. The second the door was open Wolf slammed the gas pedal down and the peeled out of the garage and into the street. Tom was clutching his seatbelt like it was a lifeline and Snake hit the back of Wolf's seat.

"Jesus Christ Wolf! Drive normal!"

Wolf ignored him as he shifted the car into drive and started down the street and out of the neighborhood. He had just reached the crossroad when a hooded figure suddenly dashed out in the street, a gun in one hand and an emergency flare of all things in the other. Wolf slammed on the brakes attempting to stop but he wasn't quick enough. He was going to hit this person.

There was the sound of squealing brakes, Tom yelled, and a blur of red as the hooded person jumped straight up in the air to land on top of the car instead of being dragged under it. Everything came to a stop and Wolf got a good look at Cub through the windshield. The sniper had clearly put up a fight. His face was scratched, his lower lip was cut, and Wolf recognized the beginnings of a black eye.

Cub's eyes seemed to be drawn to Tom's by an invisible force. The two boys stared at each other both wide eyed and more than a little frightened. Cub was probably frightened of how Tom would react to being this close to each other for the first time since they'd been kidnapped; Tom was just frightened in general. The car was utterly silent and despite the fact that Wolf knew he needed to get them out of there, he couldn't seem to move.

Finally, after a long moment of nothing Cub slid off the car and ran. Wolf had no idea where he was going or what he was planning on doing but he did know that Cub had just saved them all.

"Alex!" Tom shouted, looking distraught. Wolf floored the gas pedal and sped out of the neighborhood forcing himself to concentrate on the road and not on the fact that Tom had just remembered Alex Rider. His best friend was no longer lost to him and the implications of a returning memory were lost on no one.

"Alex!"


	8. Chapter 8

The worst part of Wolf's day was surprisingly not being shot at, watching his friend actually get shot, or the panic filled drive to the Royal & General Bank. MI6 had been thoroughly surprised when Wolf had shown up dragging a highly reluctant Tom by his shirt collar with Snake propping up a profusely bleeding Eagle behind him. It took twenty minutes for him to convince the front desk not to shoot them and to allow them entrance by which time Eagle had passed out.

Luckily, Mrs. Jones had eventually been pulled from a meeting to verify their clearance and they were allowed to take Eagle to the on-site infirmary. The infirmary was equipped to handle a myriad of injuries ranging from bad papercuts to missing appendages. Only the most grievous of injuries were farmed out to St. Dominic's. An hour later, Eagle was perfectly awake and extremely cranky. Snake and Wolf had both given their statements and were now waiting for more information.

Unfortunately, someone had tried to take Tom's statement and now the kid was hiding under a large conference table, biting anyone who came too close.

"What did you say to him?" Wolf asked the bewildered MI6 agent who had finally found him by the coffee pot and informed him of what was happening with the witness. The agent shrugged.

"I didn't think I said anything too horrible," he said. "I've worked with civilians before."

"Yes, I'm sure you were fine, but what did you _say_?"

"All I asked was if it was okay for me to take his statement. He didn't say anything so I asked again and when he still didn't say anything I said his name. Then he just dove under the table and bit me on the ankle."

"He bit you?" Snake asked, bemused. Tom had admitted to biting people before but Wolf could hardly believe it was happening here of all places. He had thought they were beyond that type of thing. Hell, Tom had stopped all of that before Wolf had ever even gotten there in the first place. Sure they had been going through a rough patch lately but Tom hadn't regressed that far.

However, Wolf vividly recalled how he had found Tom in the living room and he wondered if the kid might be having flashbacks. He asked Snake about it.

"It's entirely possible," Snake told him. "He used to have them all the time."

"What room were you in?" Wolf asked and the MI6 walked him back to the conference room where Tom was hiding under the table. "Give us a minute?"

"Of course," the man replied, then he handed Wolf a handheld recorder. "If it helps, you can take his statement. It just has to be recorded, nobody really cares if it's you who records it."

"I'll do my best," Wolf promised, turning away, taking a deep breath, and opened the door. He left the recorder on the table and crawled underneath which a difficult thing to do considering he was too large to fit comfortably and he refused to leave his coffee behind. Tom was leaning against the large, blocky leg of the table, his knees tucked to his chest, but surprisingly, there seemed to be no trace of fear in his face. In fact, he looked downright pissed.

"I really don't like SCORPIA," he said. Not having anything to say to that, Wolf took a sip of his coffee, feeling utterly ridiculous for sitting under a table in MI6 headquarters. He had never done something so quirky. "They're just getting mean now."

"What do you mean?" he asked. He would have assumed that Tom would have thought SCORPIA was being mean when they were torturing him or poisoning his soup. He couldn't begin to imagine what Tom was talking about.

"They shot Eagle!" Tom exclaimed, his hands picking at his bare toes in agitation. Wolf realized that the kid was barefoot. He wondered if Tom had been barefoot all along or if he had ditched his shoes somewhere. "And he didn't even do anything. That's just rude."

"I suppose," Wolf replied neutrally still uncertain of how to properly reply. He had never seen Tom pissed off.

"I'm tired of them, Wolf. I just want them gone."

"We're working on it, kiddo."

"Did you see his face? Alex's I mean."

"You mean the cuts and bruises? Yeah, I saw them."

"Where do you think he went?"

"I really don't know," Wolf said but he wished that he had something else to tell the poor boy. However, he was also very curious about where Cub had run off to after Wolf had almost run him over. "What did you remember about him?"

"A lot, actually," Tom replied and his expression softened. His shoulders slumped a little and his eyes clouded a bit. "I remember school, a few sleepovers, but I also remember everything he ever told me about his time here in MI6. He really doesn't like them; or trust them."

"Is that why you bit that man?"

"I can't be here Wolf," Tom said, completely ignoring Wolf's question.

"Why not?" Wolf questioned. "Because of Alex?" Cub had drawn the short straw, sure, but Tom was a civilian and a witness. They wouldn't hesitate to manipulate him but they were terrified of doing something to make him shut down. They needed those memories Tom had lost; Tom technically had all the power at the moment. Right now, he was the kid to know.

"No, it's not really that," Tom said. "They won't hurt me, I know that, it's something else."

"We have things we have to do before we leave Tom," Wolf said knowing they definitely wouldn't be leaving this place without getting that recorded statement. Not to mention that they technically had nowhere to go. Their safe house was burned; they had to be assigned another one.

"Like what?" Tom asked. In response, Wolf conducted a wonderfully strange contortionist routine to try and grab the recorder without actually moving from the waist down. He managed after just a moment of straining his side muscles and returned to his spot under the table with Tom looking at him as if he was crazy. A novel experience, considering.

"I have to record your statement," Wolf stated and without waiting for Tom's okay, he turned the recorder on and began a new file. "Start from the beginning."

"Like the beginning of this morning or when the bomb went off?"

"When you first realized when something was going on."

"Well, I was in the living room, making my paper clip chain, and suddenly there was this giant ass boom! I knew immediately that something weird was going on because it's generally a very quiet street. The last time anything fun happened on that street was when I lost control of the glitter gun last Halloween and then the thing caught fire and, um."

Tom must have seen something in Wolf's expression because he stuttered to a stop, looked horribly embarrassed, and backtracked.

"Anyway," he continued, "I had a flashback. And that's all I remember."

Wolf raised an eyebrow but didn't bother to correct Tom about what had happened after Wolf had pulled him out of the house and into the car. Tom clearly didn't want to talk about Alex on a recording and Wolf wasn't mean enough to make him. The statements Snake, Wolf, and Eagle had given would be more then enough to cover the holes in Tom's. He turned off the recording.

"How are you feeling Tom?" Wolf asked, legitimately concerned. Flashbacks could be horribly debilitating, Wolf knew that first hand. While Tom had lived through flashbacks before, this last one was a little ill timed.

"I'm okay," Tom mumbled and Wolf could tell that he was lying. He didn't push the kid though.

"C'mon," he said and crawled out from under the table, Tom right behind him. "Let's go see if we can visit Eagle."

00000

When they stepped back into the corridor they were accosted by a very annoyed, very familiar MI6 agent.

"Ben?" Wolf questioned, honestly surprised to see him there in a nice suit and carrying a large file marked classified.

"I've been looking for you everywhere," he snapped by way of reply. "Markus said you were in the conference room."

"We were under the table," Wolf said, taking another sip of his coffee with a smirk. Fox had always been easy to irritate. He had OCD and while it hadn't been a problem at training where an orderly bunk was mandatory, Ben's brief stay at Wolf's flat had left the man with the distinct impression that both Wolf and Eagle were the dirtiest people on the planet. They hadn't really seen him in a year. The most Wolf knew about his life was that he had taken a job at MI6.

"Why-?" Ben started to ask, thought better of it, shook his head, and changed his question. "Are you aware of what's been happening at the safe house?"

"No," Wolf said shortly. Tom shifted uncomfortably.

"Well, apparently Alex exploded a car."

Wolf nodded as if that wasn't a big deal but it did make sense to him. The sniper had been distracted by that explosion which meant he hadn't known it was going to happen. It hadn't been caused by SCORPIA and the only player on the street who hadn't been pinned down was Cub.

"He's also missing."

"What?"

"Yes, we can't find him."

"Do you think he was captured?" Ben gave him such an intense you're-stupid-look that Wolf actually took a half step back, worried he was about to be sassed to death.

"No, I think he's being incredibly stubborn and refusing to come in," Ben replied. "He does this more than anyone would like to admit." Wolf couldn't help but be proud of Cub. He smirked in amusement despite the fact that Ben could hold them there indefinitely and would to do so just to be difficult. They had that kind of relationship.

"The point is," Ben continued, "we need your help tracking him down."

"What could I possibly do?"

"I know he's contacted you Wolf," Ben replied. "I'm the lead agent on this case."

"Since when?"

"Since always." Ben suddenly turned to look at Tom as if he'd suddenly realized he was there. "Hello, Tom."

"Hi, Mr. Daniels," Tom said, sounding perfectly respectful and even a little amused as if the previous conversation was funny to him. At least he wasn't cowering under a table anymore. "How are you?"

"I'm quite well, thank you," Ben said. Wolf could immediately tell that Ben had a fondness for Tom. He rarely engaged in small talk unless he legitimately liked the person. Ben had never engaged in small talk with Wolf.

"You two know each other?" Wolf asked. He had been under the distinct impression that the only MI6 person Tom had ever talked to was Jones. He had certainly never mentioned knowing anybody else in the organization.

Ben said, "In a case with such a strong Cub theme, do you really think they would pass over an agent who trained with the kid for someone else?"

"No, I suppose not," Wolf replied, sounding equally as sarcastic as Ben was. "You are aware that Cub isn't alone right?"

"What?"

"Yeah," Wolf said around the last sip of his coffee. "He was with some girl. Blond. She drove him away from the house."

Ben opened his mouth, clearly about to tell Wolf off for not mentioning this sooner, but Tom beat him to it.

"That must be Sabina."

"Who?" Ben asked, completely sidetracked.

"Sabina Pleasure," Tom repeated.

"Aren't the Pleasures the family that took him in over in America?"

"Yeah, but they've been friends a while now. They now all about Alex and MI6. Well, not all of it but enough to make informed decisions at least. They've been swept up in a couple of Alex's missions before. I think they even were a mission once. Mr. Pleasure is a reporter and he has a tendency to stick his nose where it doesn't belong."

Ben looked very thoughtful after Tom's rambling explanation. Wolf took this as the best time to ask his question.

"Who told Cub about Tom?" Ben's eyes immediately snapped back towards Wolf and regarded him seriously. He must not of thought that Wolf would have picked up on that little mystery. How did Cub, who had basically been frozen out of his organization, seem to know about the intimate details of a very classified case?

"As far as we can tell," Ben said slowly, cautiously, "he was told by someone in the CIA. We don't know who told him and we don't know the motive behind it either."

"Alex did a couple of favors for the CIA director," Tom said, further surprising them both. "They owe him."

Wolf was a little thrown by the dangerous amount of information that had been locked away in Tom's brian. He was also very surprised by how easily it seemed to come back to the kid. He wondered if it had been gone at all or if that had been a way to keep curious people at bay. Wolf would have to keep an eye on the kid.

"You have to find this kid," Ben said to Wolf, not bothering to outwardly address Tom's CIA tip.

"Send Snake," Wolf countered. He had a bad feeling that if he left Tom now he'd lose a ton of the ground he had gained with the kid. In Wolf's opinion Tom Harris and his memories of SCORPIA plans were far more important than Cub. Cub could take care of himself.

"You know Cub best," Ben countered.

"I do not," Wolf protested. "I worked one op with the kid and I spent half that time trying to figure out where in the hell he wandered off to. You go."

"I am," Ben countered. "But this is really a job for at least two people, possibly more. You know that."

"So take Snake," Wolf reiterated.

"No, Wolf," Tom said quietly. "You should go. Alex will talk to you before he talks to Snake."

"How would you know?" Wolf snapped, annoyed. Tom barely blinked at the tone however. In fact, he smirked at him. Wolf had never seen this expression on Tom before and he didn't much care for it.

"Just a hunch," he said.

"Great!" Ben exclaimed. "It's settled. You're going." He then disappeared into the mass of cubicles before Wolf could say anything.

"I didn't actually agree!" he shouted. Nobody really seemed to care though, least of all Tom, who was giggling. "Stop that!"

Tom's response was to go streaking down the corridor, laughing the entire way to the lifts, which would take them back to where Eagle was laid up. At least Wolf might get some sympathy from him, gunshot wound and all.


End file.
